Conformity: The Power of Social Influences

By Cass R. Sunstein and Robert H. Frank

The New York Times–bestselling coauthor of Nudge reveals the appeal—and the danger—of conformity: “Fascinating and surprising revelations.” —GQ

We live in an era of tribalism, polarization, and intense social division—separating people along lines of religion, political conviction, race, ethnicity, and sometimes gender. How did this happen? In Conformity, Cass R. Sunstein argues that the key to making sense of living in this fractured world lies in understanding the idea of conformity—what it is and how it works—as well as the countervailing force of dissent.

An understanding of conformity sheds new light on many issues confronting us today: the role of social media, the rise of fake news, the growth of authoritarianism, the success of Donald Trump, the functions of free speech, debates over immigration and the Supreme Court, and much more.

Lacking information of our own and seeking the good opinion of others, we often follow the crowd, but Sunstein shows that when individuals suppress their own instincts about what is true and what is right, it can lead to significant social harm. While dissenters tend to be seen as selfish individualists, dissent is actually an important means of correcting the natural human tendency toward conformity and has enormous social benefits in reducing extremism, encouraging critical thinking, and protecting freedom itself.

Sunstein concludes that while much of the time it is in the individual’s interest to follow the crowd, it is in the social interest for individuals to say and do what they think is best. A well-functioning democracy depends on it.
 
“Eminently relevant . . . a must-read.” ―Booklist

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781479846849

Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is the nation’s most-cited legal scholar who, for the past fifteen years, has been at the forefront of behavioral economics. From 2009 to 2012, he served as the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Since that time, he has served in the US government in multiple capacities and worked with the United Nations and the World Health Organization, where he chaired the Technical Advisory Group on Behavioral Insights and Sciences for Health during the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. His book Nudge, coauthored with Richard Thaler, was a national bestseller. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and the humanities. He lives in Boston and Washington, DC, with his wife, children, and labrador retrievers.

Book preview

Conformity

Conformity

The Power of Social Influences

Cass R. Sunstein

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York

www.nyupress.org

© 2019 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Sunstein, Cass R., author.

Title: Conformity : the power of social influences / Cass R. Sunstein.

Description: New York : New York University Press, 2019. | Also available as an ebook. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018041768| ISBN 9781479867837 (cl ; alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Sociological jurisprudence. | Law—Social aspects. | Conformity. | Social influence.

Classification: LCC K370 .S83 2019 | DDC 340/.115—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018041768

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Also available as an ebook

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction: The Power of Social Influences

Chapter 1: How Conformity Works

Chapter 2: Cascades

Chapter 3: Group Polarization

Chapter 4: Law and Institutions

Conclusion: Conformity and Its Discontents

Notes

Index

About the Author

Acknowledgments

This short book has traveled a long and winding road. In early 2003, I delivered the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Lectures at Harvard Law School, under the title Conformity and Dissent. With the help of the comments I received during and after the presentation, the lectures were reoriented, expanded, and transformed into a book, Why Societies Need Dissent, published by Harvard University Press in late 2003. There is of course a significant overlap between the original text and that book. But I retained a fondness for the original lecture text, which was not only significantly shorter but also more focused, less polemical, and a bit less preachy—and also more quizzical, and in some ways (I like to think) more enduring.

As of this writing, there is mounting worldwide attention to the problem of conformity, and also to associated questions about identity, extremism, cascades, polarization, and diversity. This book is a contemporary version of the original text, with a new preface and a variety of changes, mostly for updating and clarity of exposition. I am acutely aware that with respect to the underlying social science, there have been significant developments since 2003. I have done my best to summarize the leading developments and to avoid relying on controversial claims and findings, though the field continues to progress.

It took a village. For valuable discussions and comments, I am grateful to Jacob Gersen, Reid Hastie, David Hirshleifer, Christine Jolls, Catharine MacKinnon, Martha Nussbaum, Susan Moller Okin, Eric Posner, Richard Posner, Lior Strahilevitz, Edna Ullmann-Margalit, and Richard Zeckhauser. Special thanks to my agent, Sarah Chalfant, for help and support, and to my editor, Clara Platter, for valuable suggestions throughout and above all in connection with the preface. Andrew Heinrich and Cody Westphal provided excellent research assistance.

Preface

Conformity is as old as humanity. In the Garden of Eden, Adam followed Eve’s lead. The spread of the world’s great religions is partly a product of conformity. Books remain to be written on this topic, with special attention to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.¹ Generosity and kindness, concern for the vulnerable, considerateness, protection of private property, respect for human dignity—all of these are fueled by conformity, which provides a kind of social glue.²

Conformity also makes atrocities possible. The Holocaust was many things, but it was emphatically a tribute to the immense power of conformity. The rise of Communism also reflected that power. Contemporary terrorism is not a product of poverty, mental illness, or a lack of education. It is a product, in large part, of the pressure that some people put on other people. That pressure has everything to do with conformity. When people of one political party march together, develop dogmas and rages, and ridicule people of another political party, conformity is at work. In its worst forms as well as its best, nationalism is fueled by conformity.

As we shall see, the idea of conformity is far more interesting and less simple than it seems. But two ideas capture much of the territory. First, the actions and statements of other people provide information about what is true and what is right. If your friends and neighbors worship a particular God, fear immigration, love a nation’s current leader, believe that climate change is a hoax, or think that genetically modified food is dangerous to eat, you have reason to believe all those things. You might well take their beliefs as evidence of what you should believe.

Second, the actions and statements of other people tell you what you ought to do and say if you want to remain in their good graces (or get there in the first place). Even if you disagree with them in your heart of hearts, you might silence yourself or even agree with them in their presence. Once you do that, you might find yourself starting to shift internally. You might begin to act and even to think as they do.

The subject of conformity is not limited to any particular time and place, and I hope that the same is true of the discussion of that subject here. But it is worth noting that modern technologies—and above all the Internet—cast long-standing phenomena in a new light. Suppose that you live in a small, remote village, with a high degree of homogeneity. What you know will be mostly limited to what is known in that village. Your beliefs might well mirror those of your neighbors. You might be entirely rational, but what you believe might not be rational at all. As Justice Louis Brandeis noted, Men feared witches and burnt women.³

Unless your own imagination and experiences lead you in fresh directions, you will act and think as your neighbors do. To be sure, some people are rebels, and they can add to a society’s stock of information. For them, deviance is far more appealing than conformity. They want to be deviants. But if your world is limited, your horizons will be limited as well. There will be limits to what you can see and imagine.

Now suppose that wherever you live, you spend much of your time online. In some ways, the entire world is at your disposal. If you do a search for the world’s religions, you can learn a great deal in an extraordinarily short time. If you do a search for climate change hoax, you can discover diverse views, and if you are willing to spend an hour or two on the topic, you can obtain at least a rough understanding of what scientists think. If you search for genetically modified food health risks, you can find studies of multiple kinds and various reports, some of them highly technical. Sorting out what is reliable may not be easy. There are countless falsehoods out there. But here is the point: if you are inclined to conform, you will have to do a fair bit of work before you decide what, or whom, you will conform to.

In most ways, that is an immense step forward for the human species. Our potential horizons are far broader than they ever were, and they are getting broader all the time. At the same time, human beings appear to be tribal. Wherever we live—a small village or New York, Copenhagen, Jerusalem, Paris, Rome, Beijing, or Moscow—we develop allegiances. Once we do that, we follow informational signals from some people rather than others. We want the approval of those we love, admire, like, and trust. For that reason, conformity pressures will remain, even if there are a lot of tribes out there and even if we have some freedom to choose among them. (I once asked a new friend why we liked each other so much. Her answer came back immediately: Same tribe.)

As I write, the world seems to be witnessing a rebirth of tribalism. In the United States, Europe, and South America, people seem to be sorting themselves into identifiable tribes, defined in terms of politics, religion, race, and ethnicity. Appearances can be misleading, of course, and to know whether there really is any such rebirth, we would need some careful analysis. But there is no question that for numerous people, the Internet in general and social media in particular are giving rise to new opportunities for conformity pressures.

Begin with informational signals: On your Facebook page or your Twitter feed, you might receive all sorts of material from people that you like or trust. They might tell you something about a nation’s leader, crime, Russia, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the European Union, a new product, how to raise children, or a new political movement—anything at all. What they say might be credible because they say it. Turn now to your concern for your reputation and social standing: If those in your online community think a certain way, you might be disinclined to disagree with them or inclined to agree with them. Of course much will depend on the thinness or the thickness of your connections with them. Perhaps you don’t much care about what they think of you. But many people do care—which means they will be inclined to conform.

No simple evaluation of conformity would make the slightest sense. On the one hand, it helps to make civilization possible. On the other hand, it enables horrors and destroys creativity. My emphasis here is on the dynamics of conformity—on what it does and how it does it. The overall evaluation is, I hope, appreciative of nuance. If the discussion turns out to be most spirited when invoking misfits and rebels, well, I couldn’t help myself.

For all the good that conformity does, it can also crush what is most precious and most vital in the human soul. Bob Dylan put it mysteriously and I think well: To live outside the law, you must be honest.⁴

Introduction

The Power of Social Influences

How do people influence each other? What are the social functions of dissenters, malcontents, misfits, and skeptics? How do the answers to these questions bear on social stability, on the emergence of social movements, on law and policy, and on the design of private and public institutions? For orientation, consider three sets of clues.

1. A few years ago, a number of citizens from two different cities were assembled into small groups, usually consisting of six people.¹ The groups were asked to deliberate on three of the most contested issues of the time: climate change, affirmative action, and same-sex unions. The two cities were Boulder, known by its voting patterns to be predominantly left of center, and Colorado Springs, known by its voting patterns to be predominantly conservative. Citizens were first asked to record their views individually and anonymously, and then to deliberate together in an effort to reach a group decision. After deliberation, individual participants were asked to record their postdeliberation views individually and anonymously. What do you think happened?

As a result of group deliberation, people from Boulder moved to the left on all three issues. By contrast, people from Colorado Springs became a lot more conservative. The effect of group deliberation was to shift individual opinions toward extremism. Group verdicts on climate change, affirmative action, and same-sex unions were more extreme than the predeliberation average of group members. In addition, the anonymous views of individual members became more extreme, after deliberation, than were their anonymous views before they started to talk.

As a result, deliberation sharply increased the disparities between the citizens of Boulder and those of Colorado Springs. Before deliberation, there was considerable overlap between many individuals in the two cities. After deliberation, the overlap was a lot smaller. Liberals and conservatives became more sharply divided. They started to live in different political universes.

2. Ordinary citizens were asked to say, as individuals, how much a wrongdoer should be punished for specified misconduct.² Their responses were measured on a scale of 0 to 8, where 0 meant no punishment at all and 8 meant extremely severe punishment. After offering their individual judgments, people were sorted into six-person juries, which were asked to deliberate and to reach unanimous verdicts. When the individual jurors favored little punishment, deliberating juries showed a leniency shift, meaning a rating that was systematically lower than the median rating of individual members before they started to talk with one another. In other words, juries ended up more lenient than their own median juror in advance of deliberation.

But when individual jurors favored strong punishment, the group as a whole produced a severity shift, meaning a rating that was systematically higher than the median rating of individual members before they started to talk. Thus, deliberating juries turned out to be more severe than their own median juror. The direction and the extent of the shift were determined by the median rating of individual jurors. When individuals started out with lenient ratings, groups became more lenient still. When individuals started out with severe ratings, groups became more severe still. It is worth emphasizing the latter finding: if group members are outraged, groups end up becoming even more outraged.

3. In the United States, a large number of judicial votes and decisions were investigated to see if judges on federal courts of appeals are influenced by other judges with whom they are sitting on three-judge panels.³ It is tempting to speculate that judges will vote in accordance with their views about the law and will not be influenced by conformity pressures. But this suggestion turns out to be wrong.

A Republican-appointed judge sitting with two other judges appointed by Republican presidents becomes much more likely to vote in a stereotypically conservative direction in cases that involve civil rights, sexual harassment, environmental protection, and much more. Perhaps more remarkably, a Democratic-appointed judge sitting with two Republican appointees also becomes more likely to vote in a stereotypically conservative direction. And something important happens when three Republican appointees sit together: the

Reviews for Conformity

[paul_s-289480 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Describing the same old social experiments and then waffling about diversity.

[over.the.edge · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Conformity: The Power of Social Influenceby Cass R. Sunstein due 5-28-2019 NYU Press 3.7 / 5.0This book explains to us the influences and influencing factors that increase or decrease our incentive to conform. It also explains how informational and reputational influences produce conformity, cascades and polarization, and the importance of institutions to promote the disclosure of private views, not just popular views, to make an educated and sound decision whose effects apply to everyone.Compelling and informing, I enjoyed reading this study of conformity and hope it will be widely read. It makes valid and important points, especially in today´s world.Thanks to the editor for sending this e-book ARC for review. #netgalley #Conformity

[davidwineberg · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Cass Sunstein discovers sheepleThe presence of people colors discussion and decisions. It is a factor that can change the status of anything. In Conformity, Cass Sunstein explores a lot of the risks of being swayed for the wrong reasons.Conformity comes in flavors like cascades and polarization. The cascade effect occurs when others have made their choice. Subconscious pressure makes the last person agree. And this cascade effect can spread everywhere, through whole populations, last forever, and become entrenched in the culture or even in law. This is how we get bad laws.On the other hand, a strong, confident voice going the other way can induce everyone else to change their position, because they think s/he knows better. No matter which way you look, people like to conform to something. And in the absence of their own knowledge, a seeming authority is an acceptable substitute. This how we get bad laws.Then on the third hand, people like to hide. They don’t like to stand out, to risk ridicule or their reputation. No one wants trouble or embarrassment or humiliation. They don’t like it known they were wrong. Since they’re not about to turn the tide, they go with the majority. This is how we get bad laws.We’ve all probably been there: rather than vote against, we’d prefer to be part of the team, not the lone exception, not the wacko, not someone to avoid in the hallway. We see it in Congress, where our electeds can be afraid to vote their conscience in order to avoid the criticism and provide future opponents with ammunition. After all, their votes have been recorded.This leads directly to more extreme decisions (group polarization), as there is no one (known in social science circles a whistleblower) willing to bring the debate back to the center.One of Sunstein’s more interesting examples is binge drinking, which students think is far more widespread than it is. Told the real figures, fewer binge. Nothing else has changed, but the knowledge they are in a disfavored minority is sufficient to change their behavior.The great problem with cascades of conformity, as Sunstein points out numerous times, is that they are not reliable. They may or may not occur. When you most expect them, nothing might happen. Except with political parties.Sunstein focuses on appellate court judges for their confirmation of these theories. In an examination of cases involving the EPA, three judge panels voted more than three quarters of the time against the EPA if all three were Republicans. They adjudicated for the EPA if they were all Democrats. On split panels, the decisions drifted down toward the 50% level. Unanimity leads to extremism, he says. Dissent works wonders. Dissent promotes balance.But I think Sunstein drew the wrong conclusion. It’s not that we have to be careful about conformity situations, it’s that the two party system is anti-democratic and anti-justice. None of those EPA decisions was evaluated for its merits. It wasn’t necessary. It was simply a question of political ideology. That is clearly wrong in a system of blind justice, and the fault is not with conformity but with Democrats and Republicans. They should not bring their party memberships to work, especially if we know how conformity works.Knowing how conformity twists situations, we should seek to isolate as much as we can from the ill effects - of the two party system.David Wineberg